okay guys.... hope people can help me out with this... i have been looking for a 12" lift for my p/u but the thing is i cant find any brand that makes it... i see for the gen before my truck and after but the highest i seen for mine is 8" and i already have a 6" on mine. i dont want to waste my money on a 8" (almost 3g's for 2 inches more). i want to go the full 12"..... can anyone help please. (we talkign about suspenion lifts btw)


btw marry xmas to all. and happy holidays.

 

You have a TTB front end. Put a 12" lift on that and tires that willl look right and watch it fall apart.

If you want that much lift and tires to fit it, you need to start looking into a SAS with a D60 front and a 10.25 rear or GM14 bolt rear.

 

so you mean to tell me that i am right and i happen to get the only gen that doesnt have a 12" suspenion lift kit... and your saying that the TTB is the reason i cant get a lift like that? so i am stuck with the 8" kit of i dont want to do some heavy mods.... damn.

 

get an 8in. kit then a 3in. body lift and you've got 11inches. but i agree with trimble that your truck will not last with the right size tires for that setup.

 

TTB = Twin Traction Beams this is your front suspension setup. Its a variant of IFS (independant front suspension)

SFA = Solid Front Axle Dana 44, Dana 50, Dana 60's are all SFAs they do not move independantly from driver side to passanger side. If you look under a 4x4 Super Duty you will see a SFA

SAS = Solid Axle Swap this is what i have done to my truck, look in my gallery and see the difference from stock IFS to a SFA

 

No 97-03 4x4 F150's dont offer any QUALITY lifts over 6" either. Whiplash and Full Throttle make big lifts but they arent worth the paper... i mean metal they are made out of.

The TTB front end becomes very problematic with lift and large tires.

The money you would spend on doing a 12" lift if there was one would almost pay for a SAS for the front of your truck and you wouldnt have to stop at 12". You could get a D44 out of a older F150 thats already setup for coils and radius arms and its not much more than a bolt it. But if i was you and i wanted to go that big id skip the D44 and go to a D60. But either way its not an impossible swap to do in your driveway.

 

okay so dilloncawthon and 4.2trimble my choses would be either: (1) stick with what i got now (6" suspension). or (2) go for the 8" suspension with the 3" body. or (3) do the SAS and then go buck wild and go as high as i want?

and another thing you think if i would go for the 8" sus. and 3" body would it be as bad as you guys say it would be? would it just fal apart on me?

what do you guys remcomend with the SAS ? from where should i get it? off a truck or from a website?

hey thanks sofar the helps been great. i am learning for the better.

 

Ive ran MULTIPLE vehicles with the same suspension as you. I ran lifts on these vehicles and always had some type of problem. They werent worth the money i put into them. The tires always wore unevenly and ackwardly. They always developed alignment problems. i even broke brackets off of several lifts.

If you are going to get another lift I wouldnt go with anything except SkyJacker, I had the best luck from them, and best customer service.

It really depends on what you want to do with the truck, what size tires do you want to run? with 12" of lift 40's should fit, might be tight but they would fit.

With tires that big you are going to run into ALOT of issues with the suspension and axles. In my opinion if you want to go that big then the only way to go is swapping the axles for 3/4 ton or 1 ton axles. You can get the axles right out from under a 96 or older F250. You will have to get new wheels as the bolt pattern will be 8x6.5.

 

yeah a SAS will be better in pretty much every way but it all really depends on how you use your truck. if it doesn't leave the road, or at least not very much, then doing a suspension lift and body lift with tires should be ok.

 

yeah the TTB setup is garbage, it sucks to say it but your wheel travel moves on a half circle styled basis, so when your suspension travels up and down it will camber your wheels negative and positive ( best way i can try to explain that) and wears either the inner or outer tread line or will feather the tire. before you go thinking about an SAS go look at the SAS on 04+ thread in this section and read up for a bit on it. its a big project.

 

Check out http://www.fullsizebronco.com/ There are tons of SAS threads over there for your generation f150/bronco. The ttb is pretty much trash, unless you're building a pre-runner. Not only do you have the camber change issues but when you're in an offcamber situation the high side will try to unload and "jack" that side up, which will make it even more tippy. There are also a lot of steering issues in stock form.

I just completed an SAS on a 93 explorer which has the same type of suspension/axle. It's not that hard but it does require a good understanding of suspensions and the ability to fabricate. If you don't have this right now though dont fret too much. I jumped into mine with hardly anything except a lot of reading under my belt. I couldn't weld, and didn't have the tools needed. Over time and a number of iterations of each part though I got!

Good luck!

 

I wouldnt think it would be as hard on his body style as it is on the 04+'s. I mean, the 150/250/350 all shared the same body style back then, so theroretically, you could drop the axles off one of those trucks, and it should bolt up to the others. I mean, obviously there is gonna be some fab work, stuff that doesnt line up perfectly, but id like to believe that itd be easier on his body style then yours.

 

you are correct. If you choose the right axle a radius arm and coil spring setup would be almost bolt in. Its probably one of the easiest trucks to to do a SAS on.